About this course

What is IAS Exam?

Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) conducts Civil Services exam to recruit candidates for different All India Services and Central Civil Services for various departments of the Government of India. The Civil Services Exam is commonly called as the IAS Exam.

IAS exam is conducted in two stages – Preliminary (objective-type paper) and Mains (descriptive paper and interview). UPSC IAS Preliminary paper is conducted to select candidates for the Main(written) exam. IAS Prelims is just a screening exam and its marks are not considered for the final merit.

UPSC Civil Services Main Exam, as the name suggests, is the main stage of the IAS Exam Process. The marks of the IAS Main exam is taken into consideration for the IAS Final Result. The final merit list for the UPSC Civil Services Exam provides a rank to the candidates. Based on these ranks, Services are allotted to the candidates.

IAS Exam Dates

Candidates can go through important UPSC IAS exam dates 2020 below:

Event

Dates

Salient Features

IAS Exam 2020 Notification

February 12

The UPSC will issue the Civil Services Exam Notification 2020 mentioning the vacancies and other important information

Last date to apply for IAS Exam 2020

March 3

The IAS online application will be accepted until this date.

IAS Prelims Exam 2020

May 31

IAS Prelims 2020 Exam will be conducted in offline mode across the nation.

IAS Prelims 2020 Result

To be announced

The result of the IAS Prelims Exam 2020 will be announced by UPSC.

IAS Main Exam 2020

September 18

The IAS Main Exam 2020 will be conducted by UPSC

Eligibility Criteria for IAS Exam 2020

All candidates who wish to appear in IAS exam 2020 need to ensure that they meet the eligibility criteria as mentioned below:

Nationality

For Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Police Service (IPS), a candidate must be a citizen of India. For all other services a candidate can either be a citizen of India or

A subject of Nepal/ Bhutan

A Tibetan refugee who came over to India before January 1, 1962 with the intention of permanently settling in India

A person of Indian origin who has migrated from Pakistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, East African countries of Kenya, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Zaire, Ethiopia and Vietnam with the intention of permanently settling in India

Note: Candidates who are subjects of Nepal/ Bhutan or Tibetan refugees are not eligible to apply for Indian Foreign Service (IFS).

Age Limit for IAS Exam 2020

Candidates must be minimum 21 years and maximum 32 years of age as on August 1, 2020. This means that candidates must have born not earlier than August 2, 1988 and not later than August 1, 1999.

There is also age relaxation of some years for reserved category candidates:

Category

Age Relaxation

SC/ ST

5 Years

OBC

3 Years

Defence Services Personnel, disabled in operations during hostilities with any foreign country or in a disturbed area and released as a consequence thereof

3 Years

Ex-servicemen including commissioned officers and ECOs/SSCOs who have rendered at least five years of military service as on August 1, 2019 and have been released

No age relaxation is provided to the Economically Weaker Sections in the UPSC Civil Services Exam.

Educational Qualification

Candidates must hold a graduation degree in any stream from any university established under the Act passed by the Parliament of India or State legislature. Candidates who are in the last year of the graduation and awaiting results are also eligible to apply for IAS Preliminary exam. However, such candidates need to submit the proof of passing the requisite exam at the time of applying for the Main exam. The applications for IAS Main exam are usually released in the month of July/ August.

Note: Candidates who have cleared MBBS or any other medical exam but have not completed their internship, by the time of submission of their Civil Services Main Exam applications, will be provisionally admitted to the exam. However, provisional admission to the exam will be given only if candidates submit along with their application a copy of the certificate from the concerned authority of the university/ institution that they had passed the requisite final professional medical exam, informs the official website.

Physical Standards

Candidates must be physically fit according to physical standards given in the Civil Services exam notification.

Number of Attempts in IAS Exam

All candidates are allowed a maximum of six attempts in the IAS exam. However, it may be noted that the restriction of the number of attempts is not applicable for candidates belonging to SC/ST category. Also, candidates belonging to OBC and Persons with Benchmark Disabilities categories are allowed a maximum of nine attempts in the exam.

If a candidate appears in any one paper of the IAS Prelims Exam, then it is deemed that he has made an attempt in the IAS Exam.

IAS Exam Process

Step 1: Fill IAS Exam Application Form

Candidates will be able to fill the IAS application form in online mode at upsconline.nic.in. Once the application form is filled, candidates also need to pay Civil Services exam application fee in online or offline mode.

Category

Preliminary Exam Fee

Mains Exam Fee

General/ EWS/OBC

Rs 100

Rs 200

Females/ SC/ ST/ Persons with Benchmark Disability

Nil

Nil

Step 2: Download IAS Preliminary Exam Admit Card

Candidates, who successfully filled the online application form, will be downloading their IAS admit card from the official website of the commission three weeks before the commencement of the exam. It may be noted that admit cards will not be sent by post to any candidates. Also, candidates who fail to carry their admit card on the day of exam will not be allowed to take the exam.

Step 3: IAS Preliminary Exam 2020

The IAS Prelims Exam 2020 will be conducted on May 31. Candidates need to appear for IAS Prelims exam 2020. The Preliminary exam is conducted in order to shortlist candidates for the next stage of the Civil Services exam.

Step 4: Filling of IAS DAF

The candidates, who clear the IAS prelims exam, need to fill the Detailed Application Form(DAF) for the IAS Main Exam. The DAF is a very important document and plays a very important role in the IAS Interview and during the service allocation process. It is important because the candidates mention his service preference and state preference in this form only. Based on the information given in the DAF and the vacancies, the services and the state cadres are allotted to the candidates after the IAS result.

Step 5: Download IAS Mains Exam Admit Card

All candidates, who clear the IAS Prelims exam, can download their admit cards for the Civil Services Mains exam 2020. The admit cards will be available on the official website of UPSC three weeks before the commencement of the Mains exam. The duration of each paper is three hours.

Step 6: IAS Mains Exam

IAS Main Exam 2020 will commence from September 18. Candidates need to appear for IAS Mains Exam as per the details mentioned on the admit card. IAS Mains exam consists a total of Nine descriptive papers. Out of the Nine, two papers are of qualifying in nature. These IAS Question papers are of General English and General Language paper. There are Four General Studies papers, One Essay Paper and two optional Subject paper. The marks of each paper are assigned as follows.

Sl.No.

Name of the Paper

Marks allotted

1

Essay Paper

250

2

General Studies I

250

3

General Studies II

250

4

General Studies III

250

5

General Studies IV

250

6

Optional Subject Paper I

250

7

Optional Subject Paper I

250

Total

1750

The IAS Interview(personality test) carries 275 marks. So the final merit list is prepared from out of 2025 marks.

Step 7: IAS Result 2020

After both the stages of Civil Services Exam (Preliminary and Mains) are conducted successfully, UPSC will release a final IAS result 2020 on its official website. Candidates whose names/ roll numbers appear in the merit list will then be eligible for recruitment in different services based on their preferences given in the DAF and the number of vacancies for the service.

IAS Exam Centres

IAS exam centres are notified in the IAS notification each year. IAS Preliminary exam is conducted in about 72 cities across India. IAS Mains exam is conducted in a total of 24 cities across India.The IAS Exam Centres for Prelims and Main exam are given below

IAS Preliminary Exam Centres

Agartala

Ghaziabad

Gautam Buddh Nagar

Agra

Gorakhpur

Panaji (Goa)

Ajmer

Gurgaon

Patna

Ahmedabad

Gwalior

Port Blair

Aizawl

Hyderabad

Puducherry

Aligarh

Imphal

Pune

Allahabad

Indore

Raipur

Anantpur (Andhra Pradesh)

Itanagar

Rajkot

Aurangabad

Jabalpur

Ranchi

Bangalore

Jaipur

Sambalpur

Bareilly

Jammu

Shillong

Bhopal

Jodhpur

Shimla

Bilaspur

Jorhat

Siliguri

Chandigarh

Kochi

Srinagar

Chennai

Kohima

Thane

Coimbatore

Kolkata

Thiruvananthapuram

Cuttack

Kozhikode (Calicut)

Tiruchirapalli

Dehradun

Lucknow

Tirupati

Delhi

Ludhiana

Udaipur

Dharwad

Madurai

Varanasi

Dispur

Mumbai

Vellore

Faridabad

Mysore

Vijayawada

Gangtok

Nagpur

Vishakhapatnam

Gaya

Navi Mumbai

Warangal

IAS Mains Exam Centres

The number of candidates in the IAS Main Exam is just 15 to 18 times the number of vacancies notified in the official notification. Since the number of candidates is far less in the IAS Main exam hence the number of centres are also less. The IAS Main Exam Centres are given below:

Ahmedabad

Dehradun

Mumbai

Aizawl

Delhi

Patna

Allahabad

Dispur (Guwahati)

Raipur

Bangaluru

Hyderabad

Ranchi

Bhopal

Jaipur

Shillong

Chandigarh

Jammu

Shimla

Chennai

Kolkata

Thiruvananthapuram

Cuttack

Lucknow

Vijayawada

Note: The official website informs that allotment of centres (for both Preliminary and Mains) will be on first-apply-first allot basis. Once the capacity of a particular centre is attained, the same will be frozen and applicants will have to choose a centre from the remaining options. Applicants are, therefore, advised to apply early so that they can get an exam centre of their choice.

IAS FAQs

Q. What is the age limit for IAS Exam?

A.IAS is considered as one of the toughest exams in India. The Age limit for IAS exam is different for the different categories. It is defined as follows

Category

Lower Age Limit

Upper Age Limit

General /EWS

21

32

OBC

21

35

SC/ST

21

37

The age of the candidates is counted as on August 1 of the exam year.

Q. What is the educational qualification required to become an IAS?

A. The educational qualification required to become an IAS Officer is a graduate degree in any discipline from any university established by an Act of the Central or State Legislature in India.

Q. Is coaching necessary for cracking the IAS Exam?

A. Every candidate has different needs and abilities. Joining a coaching institute is a very subjective decision. It can help some of the candidates in understanding the structure and pattern of IAS Exam but some of them find it useless. It differs from candidate to candidate.

Q. Can I prepare for IAS Exam without coaching?

A. Yes, any candidate can prepare for IAS exam without coaching. Nowadays so much information is available online which can help the candidates to prepare for IAS Exam by themselves. The candidate should select the best authentic source of information can prepare for the IAS Exam by themselves. although taking up specialized coaching like at Sankalp IAS forum will better prepare you for your exam.

Q. What is the difference between IAS and PCS?

A. IAS means Indian Administrative Services and PCS means the Provincial Civil Services. IAS is one of the three All India Services. The recruitment for IAS is done by the Union Public Service Commission. PCS is the state-centric civil services recruited through the State Public Service Commissions.

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Q. How many papers are there in the IAS Main Exam?

A. There are 9 question papers in the IAS Main Exam. Out of these 9 question papers, the candidates need to qualify in the General English and General Hindi papers and their numbers are not counted for the final merit.

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Q. Can an average student crack IAS?

A. The IAS exam is an open platform with no limitation for the average students. There is no minimum percentage of marks required in the graduation course to appear in the IAS Exam. Each year, a good number of Average students crack the IAS Exam.

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Q. Who is the Cadre Controlling Authority of IAS?

A. Ministry of Personnel which directly report to the Prime Minister of India is the Cadre controlling authority for the IAS.
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Q. When does UPSC issue the IAS Exam Notification?

A. The IAS Notification is issued in the month of February every year and the IAS Prelims is conducted in the month of May – June. The IAS Prelims 2020 will be conducted on 31 May 2019.

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Q. Can State PCS Officers be promoted to IAS?

A. Yes, the State PCS Officers can be promoted to the IAS subject to certain conditions laid down by UPSC. Each year, out of the total vacancies of IAS, 33% is filled through the promotion.

Q. Can I prepare for IAS Exam without coaching?

A. Yes, any candidate can prepare for IAS exam without coaching. Nowadays so much information is available online which can help the candidates to prepare for IAS Exam by themselves. The candidate should select the best authentic source of information can prepare for the IAS Exam by themselves. although taking up specialized coaching like at Sankalp IAS forum will better prepare you for your exam.

Syllabus

Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) conducts Civil Services exam to recruit candidates for different All India Services and Central Civil Services for various departments of the Government of India. The Civil Services Exam is commonly called as the IAS Exam. In this article we will provide students with the course structure to clear the IPS 2020 exam.

WEEK 1

Useful Expressions

Tools for Professional Approach: It’s not just about learning, it’s about having the confidence to use English in real life and upgrade your business communication skills.

1 video, 3 readings

Reading:
Competition in Pricing Strategy

25
minutes

Video:
Collocations for Job Interview

2
minutes

Reading:
Competition in Pricing Strategy

25
minutes

Reading:
Competition in Pricing Strategy

25
minutes

Graded:
Cumulative Language Quiz

3
Questions

WEEK 2

Diplomatic Language

Tools for Professional Approach - Step 2: It’s not just about learning, it’s about having the confidence to use English in real life and upgrade your business communication skills.

1 video, 2 readings

Reading:
Competition in Pricing Strategy

25
minutes

Reading:
Competition in Pricing Strategy

25
minutes

Video:
Collocations for Job Interview

2
minutes

Graded:
Cumulative Language Quiz

3
Questions

Course Features

Duration6 months minutes

Lectures7

Quizzes2

Students1

Pass Percentage60

Max Retakes3

Certificates

Digital & Certificates will be provided to each student after successful completion of every course examination.